In this video, Daniel Schindler of the University of Washington discusses his research on ecosystem changes in response to climate change and the importance of heterogeneity. Schindler is a fisheries ecologist who works on a wide range of topics, especially with salmonids and plankton in the Pacific Northwest of the North America. Read More...

Tags: video, landscape ecology, research, resilience, fish, north america

I’ve started teaching a distance learning course with Dr. Bruce Dugger at Oregon State University on wetlands. My contribution focuses on wetlands of the world and on climate impacts on wetlands, and includes making some short videos on wetlands I visit on my travels. The first installment is posted here. A new posting will be uploaded by early August for the cerrado of Brazil. Read More...

Tags: wetlands, video, conservation, travel, north america, louisiana

Climate adaptation is finally entering the consciousness of important policymakers, trickling up and through organizations. But these shifts are not occurring smoothly or without controversy and a lot of injured fingers and toes. And we seem to be moving towards two views of how to adjust to our emerging climate: “adaptation” and “Adaptation.” The state of conflict between these two views in the U.S. is globally important right now because the U.S. has been the silent watcher on climate issues for the last decade. The U.S. government has not substantively participated in climate talks, and because the U.S. economy is so large, competing economies must keep par — for good or ill. This rule is widely understood for climate mitigation issues (regulation of greenhouse gas concentrations), but it’s also true for climate adaptation costs as well, which will also become an increasingly major element of economic spending. Finally, U.S. policymakers are going to have this debate, probably as a result of the climate change bill introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives last fall.
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Tags: climate adaptation, policy, climate mitigation, north america, united states, united states

A colleague closely affiliated with WWF who is now at Australian National University has just written an excellent series of climate adaptation case studies. Jamie Pittock, the author, is in the highest tier of international freshwater conservation and policy advocates. I highly recommend downloading the 6.5 mb file. A major recommendation behind this and a companion overview of climate adaptation that I wrote with another colleague, Tom LeQuesne, is maintaining healthy freshwater species and ecosystems is the key to keeping reliable and high-quality freshwater resources for societies, economies, and livelihoods Read More...

Tags: news, climate adaptation, policy, india, africa, china, Danube, yangtze river, europe, mexico, north america, brazil, south america

I’m in Stockholm for World Water Week. I speak tomorrow with some colleagues as part of a larger series of talks on water and climate, though I’ve been here for several days. This is an unusual meeting for me: heavy on policy and programs, light on science and what I am used to thinking of as analysis. And being here captures some of the tension that a lot of us involved in climate adaptation work feel on a regular basis: How do we balance between being in a clean, well-appointed convention center, somewhere in the over-developed (even post-developed) world, talking about “issues” with people that are often several steps removed from where the action is -- places in the developing world, out of the air conditioning and the people sampling the smorgasboard of ideas and recommendations in the cold light of energy-efficient bulbs.
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Tags: policy, climate adaptation, europe, north america

To quote a recent email: Increases in river and stream temperatures caused by water use, landscape alteration, and climate change were discussed in a May 6 symposium at the Western Division American Fisheries Society annual meeting in Portland, Oregon.
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Tags: fish, climate adaptation, north america

UPDATE: You can see a short video of these kids from the week as described below. A marketing piece, but a very nice one.

Originally posted: 25 June 2008
I’m old enough that I was among the last generation to grow up with serious, warranted nightmares about massive nuclear exchanges between the U.S. and Soviet Union. I can remember being about six or seven and first learning about total nuclear annihilation; I had nightmares for a while, and I felt a consistent sense of fear and unease, certainly well into Bush 41’s presidency. I never had to deal with duck and cover drills like the generation before me, but I always felt aware of this potential doom, which felt completely out of my hands. The undercurrent of that time is hard to explain to people who haven’t lived through it.
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Tags: north america, travel, outreach, cultural impacts

Your local TV meteorologist seems like she or he should be my natural ally: a person in the local media market you trust, who is educated in climate science, and who can relate climate science and climate change trends to the daily news. These meteorologists should be the local evangelists of climate change. Sadly, they are often not. Read More...

Tags: research, policy, north america, skepticism

A symposium from the Western Division of the American Fisheries Society focused on climate change and bull trout has been posted online for live streaming. Read More...

Tags: news, species, climate adaptation, fish, north america

DC is very hot this week — it was 97 degrees F when I landed on Monday, and yesterday was much hotter. And very humid. On landing, I needed to get to my B & B quickly and decided to opt for a cab. Taxis are a little out of favor in the climate change world, especially in cities with a decent mass transit system like DC. But I didn’t see an alternative. Popping out of the terminal, I took the first cab in line. The small man in the front seat turned to me and said in a thick accent, Hello. Where are you going? Seventeenth and Lanier, near Adams-Morgan, I said. Where’s that? I leaned back, suddenly very hot and very tired.
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Tags: news, policy, north america

Tags: news, playa lakes, wetlands, climate adaptation, north america